David HockneyBritish, 1937–2026Serenade, from The Blue Guitar
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Serenade, from The Blue Guitar” now? Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Chicago, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Since the early 1960s, David Hockney has sought ways to meld his modern aesthetic style with highly personalized subject matter. He started by inserting fragments of poems into his paintings, as, for example, in We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961), which integrates two lines from a Walt Whitman poem of the same title. Fifteen years later, inspired by Wallace Stevens’s “The Man with the Blue Guitar” (1937), with its themes of representation and imaginative transformation, Hockney made 10 drawings in colored inks and crayons. With the aid of master printer Aldo Crommelynck those drawings were converted into 20 mixed intaglio prints using a color-etching process initially developed for Pablo Picasso.
Read on
While not a literal illustration of Stevens’s poem, the print series The Blue Guitar interprets its themes in visual terms, and most of the images show Hockney’s love of Picasso. The print Old Guitarist juxtaposes the Art Institute’s famous painting of 1903–04 (1926.253) with later Picasso iconography. Other sheets likewise contrast Picasso’s different phases within the same image; throughout the series, Hockney distinguishes the disparate styles by using different colors.
It is perhaps Hockney’s Blue Guitar that has perpetuated the idea that Wallace Stevens was similarly inspired by Picasso’s Old Guitarist. Although Stevens was familiar with modern art and no doubt saw the painting when it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1934, he insisted that no one picture inspired his famous poem.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Details
- Accession number
- 1978.23.19
In the catalog
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Image: Art Institute of Chicago — © the artist or rights holder
In the life of David Hockney
The whole life1966–1978
Stage designer: “Ubu Roi” and the Glyndebourne operas
Hockney’s first stage designs are for “Ubu Roi” at London’s Royal Court Theatre (1966), followed by Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress” (1975) and “The Magic Flute” (1978) for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. It is the start of the opera work that will go on in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and London.
1974
The relationship with Gregory Evans begins
Hockney met Gregory Evans in 1971; in 1974 they begin a decade-long relationship, and in 1976 Evans moves with him to the US. Later they remain business partners, with Evans managing the David Hockney Studio.
1974
Jack Hazan’s film “A Bigger Splash”
Jack Hazan makes a biopic of Hockney, “A Bigger Splash”, named after his 1967 pool painting of the same name.
24 June 1977 – 2 October 1977
Exhibition: Documenta 6
1979
A founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
In 1979 Hockney is a founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
1979
Hearing aids from 1979
Hockney’s hearing has been failing since the 1970s: he realised he was going deaf several years before he began using hearing aids in 1979. He also described synaesthetic associations between sound, colour and shape.
